“The Coming of the Third Reich”, by Richard J. Evans

602 pages, Penguin, ISBN-13: 978-1594200045

The Coming of the Third Reich is the first book in “The Third Reich Trilogy”, a series of narrative history books by the British historian Richard J. Evans that covers the rise and collapse of Nazi Germany in detail with a focus on the internal politics and the decision-making process. In this first volume, Evans focuses on the nature of German society at the time and, in a way, deemphasizes the role Hitler himself played in the coming of the Reich; when put in the context of Germany as a whole, Hitler was just what Germany wanted, and Evans explains why that is in this book. The first words of the first chapter set the theme for the entire work: after 1918, Germany wanted another Bismarck, a strong leader. Many Germans were united in their common hatred of the imposed Weimar democracy and despised the Versailles treaty and its restrictions on Germany. This, then, is the book’s central theme: how the Nazis managed to forge a one-party dictatorship in a democratic society so quickly and with so little organized resistance. For a short introductory start into the coming of the Third Reich, this is fair enough; if it were a specialized monograph, I would complain that it is too superficial. And this probably serves well as my comment on the whole book: it is a large work and covers a huge scope; therefore certain compromises must be made for depth. Did he do it right? I would say yes; Evans summarizes the failures of the Weimar Republic, the interim state which moved Germany from monarchy through a short-lived democracy after the First World War to disaster. Weimar failed, essentially, because it had insufficient support on the inside: neither the majority of the electorate nor of the party spectrum had a democratic orientation.

The stew in the pot during this period had a mélange of rabid ingredients, not least of which were: Anti-Semitism (not a German invention, which is why many observers, as well as victims, refused to anticipate its ferocity); Social Darwinism (the concept of racial hygiene); Nationalism and Pan-Germanism; Secularism as an underlying condition of most elements of this brew; the Romantic youth movement; Anti-Bolshevism (enhanced by the events following the revolution in Russia and the start of the Soviet Union); Anti-Communism (fueled by several botched attempted revolutions in Germany); the experience of World War I defeat (never accepted, explained away by the “stab in the back” theory); the humiliation of the Versailles treaty; and a kind of mock socialism, replacing the enemy “capitalism” of “The Jew”. While many right-wing groups had existed before and during the time of the Nazis, the NSDAP – Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, The National Socialist German Workers’ Party – succeeded through a combination of a strong message that they tailored to each audience, the personality of Hitler which other parties across the political spectrum lacked, and strong-arm tactics on the streets. This volume is, much like William Shirer’s classic effort The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a narrative account of the events surrounding the events of the Nazi era. It is a massively documented effort to record the story of the Third Reich in chronological order, and much as Shirer did, attempts to “give voice to the people who lived through the years” of Nazi rule.

The author is quite passionate in voicing his own concern that history once more render for the reader an intelligent recounting of the experiences of ordinary individuals, of the sheer complexity of their existential constraints, and of the available options and often incomprehensible choices they faced. So, what Evans aims to give to the reader in the early 21^st Century is a better understanding of the Nazi era by recreating all of its elements, in all their complexity and interweaving perplexity, thus reminding readers that, as L.P. Hartley said, “the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”. Given the fact that it remains as important today as ever to understand both how and why the Nazis came to power with such speed and relative ease, it is critical to better appreciate the nature of life in the Third Reich, to comprehend why their opponents failed to stop them, and to better realize the nature and the operation of the machinery of the Nazi regime once it had grasped the reins of power. Moreover, it remains crucial to understand the complex mechanism through which the operation and goals of the Third Reich so quickly and fatefully engulfed the rest of Europe and then the world in such a bloodbath of carnage and ruin.

Indeed, while the 20^th Century has no shortages of such catastrophes, including the Soviet purges of the 1930s, none of the other such events had such terrifying and cataclysmic consequences for the rest of the world. What Evans offers us here is the masterful opening volume of a trilogy explaining in excruciating detail and breathtaking comprehensiveness the story of how Germany led Europe and the rest of the world into the depths of Hell. It is a book well worth the time and effort to read.